September 2016 Newsletter

September 2016 Newsletter

Where did the “lazy” go in “Those lazy, crazy days of summer”?  PAA certainly did not take the summer off…

The Cocktails in the Garden this past month was a great success!  In summing up the event Sarah Beetem (Silent Auction whiz) wrote:

“At the Garden Cocktail Party the tip jar at the bar, many kind donations,  and the silent auction combined to made a profit of about $5,400 for LPCH.

We sold 27 of the 30 items to the highest bidder. Included were a French apartment, mountain homes, theater tickets, works of art, baskets of food, wine, baby blankets, and hobby supplies. About half our purchasers were guests of members, so we were delighted to see some new faces.

Nearly everything at the party was donated, with the food and wine a gift from our vice-president Haydee Navarro-Marshall’s husband at the Watson-Marshall Group at Coldwell Banker.  The delicious and hearty appetizers were prepared and presented by caterer Florencia Mejia from South San Francisco . The Larsson and York families donated beverages.

With both bocce ball and a putting green, guests had fun things to do as well as mingle with a very nice mixed age crowd.

The Japanese anenome bloomed just in time to decorate the perennials bed. And the warm evening was perfect for being outdoors.

Dates to mark down

September 20, 1 pm working Membership Meeting at Foundation Office,400 Hamilton Ave #340, Palo Alto (NOunderground parking available, street parking OK as our meeting will not last longer than 2 hours)

September 26, Vintage Gals lunch, 1253 Richardson Ave, Los Altos 11 am onward

September 26 & 27 Restaurants With Heart at Bistro Galata, Menlo Park

October 18  3 pm Membership Tea, 1253 Richardson Ave, Los Altos

November 2   6 pm Hospital Tour and dinner 

November 11 & 12  American Girl Fashion Show and Tea

November 15  Membership Meeting (time and location tba) 

December 3 Holiday Boutique @ Allied Arts, Menlo Park 10 am to 3 pm 

The September20, Membership Meeting will again be a working meeting! We will be snipping and assembling paper flowers for the upcoming and American Girl Fashion Show’s rainforest theme. All hands on deck! 

American Girl is up and rolling! Our theme this year is the rainforest. We will be taking advantage of the school holiday of Veteran’s Day of having the event be on Friday Nov. 11 and Saturday Nov. 12.  In years past a Friday holiday show has been very popular. 

June Schiller will be contacting you soon to volunteer for this great fundraiser. A shift of a few hours in the dining hall or the kitchen is invaluable.

Restaurants With Heart … Please join us on Monday, September 26 or Tuesday, September 27, at Galata Bistro Mediterranean Grill, 827 Santa Cruz Ave., Menlo Park, our newest RWH restaurant, for some fresh and healthy Mediterranean fare.Visit the Restaurants with Heart page at www.paloaltoauxiliary.com, to make your reservations. 

If you consider yourself a Vintage Gal, and have not contacted me yet, please do!

The Holiday Boutique at Allied Arts will be on December 3 this year. This time around we are calling on all to make a few ornaments to sell! We will have a few trees laden with our creations…now’s the time to start scrolling through Pinterest! 

A commemorative brick will be placed at the new hospital soon in our honor. Here’s the rub…just 2 lines of 23 characters each. What should we write? Put your thinking caps on…there will be a contest!

Inspiring words from David Alexander, President & CEO Lucile Packard Foundation for Children's Health,

“I'm thrilled to share this exciting news with you! Thanks to you, Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford was recognized in U.S. News & World Report's 2016-17 Best Children's Hospitals Honor Roll as one of the top 10 children's hospitals in the nation and the highest-ranking hospital in Northern California. Our hospital was recognized in all 10 pediatric specialties, including three programs in the top 10 nationally.

This is an exceptional achievement, especially considering we are the youngest children's hospital to make the Honor Roll. Since we opened our doors 25 years ago, our spectacular clinical and administrative leaders, amazing caregivers, and your generosity has made LPCH truly extraordinary. This honor is a testament to your commitment to provide the best care for children expectant mothers.

We are so grateful for your support and hope you will join us in celebrating. 

Thank you for all that you do.”

I hope you had a Fabulous Summer!…and I look forward to seeing you at one of our meetings, events or meals!

to me

July 2016 Newsletter

Hello!

I hope you are all having a wonderful summer! 

While PAA traditionally has no board or membership meetings in July or August, that doesn’t mean we’re just reading novels in the shade!

We have already had a few American Girl meetings and will have a “full” committee meeting on July 25, 10:00 am at my house. Even though a number of our members are still on holiday, headway is being made on our tropical themed event scheduled for November 11 and 12. (If you are interested in helping with the planning…please let me know. All are welcome!)

We are also happily planning our upcoming Palo Alto Auxiliary Backyard Cocktail party on August 13th.

An evite went out a couple of weeks ago. (If you did not receive one, please email Haydee Marshall @ jeazul@yahoo.com ) 

We have some amazing items that will be in our Silent Auction! Here are just some to tempt you…

A week’s stay in a cabin at beautiful Lake Tahoe

A week in an apartment on the French Riviera where Provence beckens…

A VIP Table for 10 at the American Girl Fashion Show!

An American Girl Doll for that special birthday

Little girl dresses with matching doll dresses

Cases of wine and champagne 

A golf outing in Saratoga, 

Tickets at Theatreworks,  

Gift baskets with themes such as Expectant Mother, Italian Cuisine, French Desserts, Gardening, Dog Treats… and more!!!

Please join us…feel free to bring your “date” and a friend of two, (or come solo and find friends at the event!) and see what adventures await you at the Silent Auction table, the bocce court or the dart board!

July’s Restaurants with Heart will be lunch and dinner Monday, July 25 and Tuesday, July 26, at Galata Bistro Mediterranean Grill, 827 Santa Cruz Ave., Menlo Park. This is our newest RWH restaurant, serving fresh and healthy Mediterranean fare. Attached is the flyer.

If enjoying yummy food and helping LPCH are important in your life…please consider helping out on the RwH committee. Marlene is taking a well-deserved break, and we have some big shoes to fill! Contact me!

Vintage Girls…now that’s a term we haven’t heard in a while! I wanted to resurrect a yearly meeting of our members with 25 years or more of service. I sent out an email to those with start dates before 1991 asking for any interest…and got a resounding “Yes!”. (If you have over 25 years and didn’t get an email, please let me know!)  The lunch meeting will be at my house in Los Altos on September 26 from 11 am onward. Jean Gorman of the LPFCH’s Endowment will speak after everyone has had time to eat and catch up. She wants to update us on the wonderful work being done at the Hospital with our gifts. It is amazing what PAA and her members have been able to accomplish with our donations over the past 25 plus (Vintage) years!

There were a few Vintage women who are not in the area for the 26^th, so we will just have to do it again in the Spring!

The Thora’s Thimbles group, along with other "crafty" PAA volunteers don’t take summers off. A continual stream of blankets, pillows, stuffed animals and more flow to the Hospital to give comfort to the young patients there.

So….Restaurants with Heart, Backyard Cocktail Party and Silent Auction, Vintage Girls, Thora’s Thimbles and planning for American Girl…seems like a pretty productive Summer to me!

Take care,

Nan

PS And if you do have any good novels to recommend, I’d love to hear from you!

May Newsletter

PAA is getting social!

The biggest “take-away” from our last Membership Meeting was that our members missed the camaraderie of the past. So, we are dusting off our party clothes and getting into the planning!

In a lively discussion, the members came up with a backyard Summer Cocktail Party. It would be both social and raise money for the Hospital! The idea is to have small bites, drinks, music, lots of tables and chairs, spouses, friends, … a silent auction, a “tip jar”…

The venue is set, my place in Los Altos, the date to be determined shortly. You will be getting an invite soon. Start thinking of what you might like to add to the silent auction…dinners at your club?, nights at a cabin/summer place/ time share?, wine from your cellar (that’s where I’ll be heading), a service you can offer?...be creative!

A great way to have fun and raise money for the Hospital!

*****

Our next Membership Meeting will be held after lunch at Divino Restaurant, Belmont on May 24. Those interested in a fabulous, authentic Italian lunch will meet earlier at noon. Please go to the PAA website, click the Divino information section.  You can sign up online, pay online, or wait to pay when you attend.  If you prefer to make your reservation by phone, call the PAA number, 364-2588 ext 4 or Karen Stevens @ 327-6809. (flyer attached)

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I went on the Nursing Excellence Simulation Center tour held in April and it was amazing. They do great work there creating critical medical scenarios that nurses may encounter daily or rarely. Using the 2 dummies they have, they make these scenarios a powerful learning experience. The dummies are sadly out of date, so our focus this year is to fund updated ones and the technology to get this positive training to as many nurses as possible.

Another tour is scheduled for 4 PM, May 20 at The Center For Nursing Excellence, 4700 Bohannon Dr., Menlo Park. RSVP to Eve Shaw eve.shaw@lpfch.org

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Packard Pantry is continuing this month with Erika Crowley and others filling in for Luisa while she recuperates. Luisa had successful heart surgery this past Monday. She is already out of ICU and charming her way into the hearts of the medical staff! She would appreciate emails and cards, but no visitors. She has plans to be “back at work” soon. Can’t keep a good dynamo down!

*****

Thora’s Thimbles continues to deliver a multitude of comfort items to the Hospital and their patients…from the small comfort of a “lovey” to hold in times of stress to the enormity of the time and care given to the creation of a gurney cover. The thanks PAA gets in your name is tear-worthy.

If you are handy with a needle, please think about joining them! Contact Ellen Smith ellensmith94022@gmail.com

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American Girl committee work has begun. This year’s newest doll will be launched in July…..Melody an African-American girl from 60’s Detroit.

We will begin casting calls for models at The American Girl Store later in the summer. All gearing up for our Rainforest inspired shows set for Friday, November 11 and Saturday, November 12 at Christ Episcopal Church, Los Altos.

In 2017 Mattel (the parent company of American Girl) will change how fashion shows are run. We are one of the few charities under the current system to be able to continue! All shows will be run in conjunction with an American Girl Store and the funds donated to that store’s charity. Well, we are fortunate that our local store has LPCH as their charity and that they will need and do want our help. This may turn out to be a big win for us, as they have a huge database of likely customers while we have always struggled to find cheap ways to reach potential patrons. But that is all in the distant future! (We have this year’s show to run!)

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Teen Van News One of our newer members, Cindy Dumesney and her teen-age daughter, Sophia helped pack toiletry kits at Allied Arts recently. Sophia and her friends had collected appropriate items to add to the kits. What a wonderful way for teens to help each other! The Dumesneys are anxious to do more and invite other teen/mum combos to join!  (They even got a mention at the Association of Auxiliaries Board Meeting!)

Many members of Palo Alto Auxiliary have had concerns about teen mental health issues and lack of facilities in our area.  The hospital reported back to us and is working to improve this, focusing on mental health issues for children and adolescents. I want to share some articles. 

Teen Psychiatric Facility could Open at El Camino Hospital in Mountain View. Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford is mentioned. Mountain View Voice,  4/12/16

A Dearth of Hospital Beds for Patients in Psychiatric Crisis Kaiser Health News,

Schools Target Asian Parental Expectations. Rona Hu, MD, clinical associate professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Steven Sust, MD, co-chief fellow, Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences (child and adolescent psychiatry), Amia Nash,  Stanford Health 4 All intern (Stanford Prevention Research Center) SJ Mercury, 4/9/16

Jane Andrews, a Monday Cook who has been with PAA since 1987, had a stroke last month. She is still living at home with the help of care. She just turned 95 in April!

I look forward to seeing you all soon….either at Divino’s, the Summer Cocktail Party, or a committee meeting…or all of the above!

Nan

Spring is in full bloom in our valley! The energy and vibrancy displayed in gardens and hillsides is invigorating! I hope to channel some of that energy toward our PAA projects!

Our April Membership Meeting will be next Tuesday, April 19 at 11:15 to 1:15 the Foundation office, 400 Hamilton Ave, Suite 340, Palo Alto.

We will provide tea, coffee and soft drinks and feel free to bring a sack lunch to eat while we meet. Or, make a date to have a late lunch or afternoon tea with some friends!

We will make certain that the meeting does not last longer than 2 hours, as that will not garner a parking ticket for street parking. There are parking garages in the vicinity that allow 3 hours or more.  The garage under the office is no longer open to us. If you require handicap parking, please let me know.

We’ve begun work on the American Girl Fashion Show already! This year’s theme is The Rainforest. A new doll is also being introduced: Melody, a 9 year-old African American living in Civil Rights Era Detroit. Trying to weave those concepts together will be a challenge! Our intrepid AG2016 team is up to it.

Our next American Girl planning meeting will be at 10 am on Thursday May 5 at my place. If you are interested in joining our group, please drop me a line!

This year we are holding the event on Friday November 11 and Saturday the 12^th. In the past when Veteran’s Day has landed on a Friday we have had a great turn out. Fingers crossed!

Restaurants With Heart will be at Kabul in San Carlos on Monday, April 25 and Tuesday, April 26 for lunches and dinners.  Enjoy the delicious, authentic Afghan cuisine while supporting the Hospital! Visit the Restaurants with Heart page on our website, www.paloaltoauxiliary.com to make reservations. Share the flyer with friends and family!

We are looking for volunteers to help with the Restaurants With Heart program. If you would like to scout out new restaurants to add to the calendar, please contact Marlene Bollhoffer at 650-591-0637.

If you are interested in brainstorming for new fundraising events, I’d love to chat with you! ntlarsson@gmail.com

To help with the Tote Bags, please contact Dallas lmanning@sbcglobal.net.

Comfort items made by Thora’s Thimbles, Ellen ellensmith94022@gmail.com. Despite needing more volunteers to help sew with Thora's Thimbles, the group has produced a huge number of items in the first three months of 2016 including: 170 cough pillows, 37 owls for the emergency room, 19 Beads of Courage bags, 27 toiletry bags for the teen van, 1 large pillow and 3 blankets. Why not join this group, which meets on the second Tuesday morning of the month?

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Some PAA dates to mark on your calendars:

April 19 Membership Meeting, 11:15 to 1:15 the LPFCH office, 400 Hamilton Ave, Suite 340, P. A.

April 25-26 Restaurants With Heart at Kabul, San Carlos (attachment)

April 20 and May 20, Tours of the Center For Nursing Excellence Simulation Center

May 24 Membership Meeting at Divino Restaurant, Belmont (a RwH lunch at noon with meeting to follow at 1 pm)

November 11-12 American Girl Fashion Show

Looking forward to seeing you soon,

Nan

February News

2015 was a great year; we increased monies earned by $15,000 over 2014. The new method of calibrating “soft donations” (or as Sarah Beetem put it, “Gifts in kind are kind gifts”) totaled $32,799, raising our donation to $107,799. Add to that the $134,139 member donations directly given to the Hospital and it is…………

$241,938!

Brava!

The upcoming Annual Association of Auxiliaries Celebration Luncheon will be on March 2 at Sharron Heights Golf & Country Club. The program begins at 11, but come a half hour early to get coffee and chat with old friends…or makes some new ones!

This event is very special, as it is our yearly chance to get updates on the other Auxiliaries, upcoming news from the Hospital (and the new building!) and hear heart-warming stories of how our donations have made a difference.

If you can’t find your invitation…send a $25 check to Association of Auxiliaries for Children, Eve Shaw, LPFCH, 400 Hamilton Ave, Palo Alto 94301. Latest Feb.24 Eve.shaw@lpfch.org

There is a spot for requesting seatmates. This year each table will be divided between 2 auxiliaries to give us all a new perspective. If you don’t know who to request…you can put my name down!

Restaurants With Heart will be at Divino Ristorante in Belmont on Monday, February 22 and Tuesday, February 23.  Enjoy the delicious, authentic house-made cuisine while supporting the Hospital! 

American Girl is gearing up again! (Yes! Already!) We will be holding our first planning committee meeting in March. Please let me know if you are interested in joining the planning fun.

And if you are interested in working on a sporty event for children, I’d love to chat with you! To help with the Tote Bags, please contact Dallas lmanning@sbcglobal.net. Comfort items made by Thora’s Thimbles, Ellen ellensmith94022@gmail.com

On a personal note, our 12 month old grandson landed at LPCH for a few nights earlier this month. All turned out to be fine, but it was very reassuring to have the World’s Leading Authority in the Field be the one to check him out! We are so fortunate to have LPCH in our neighborhood!

While there, we were able to see the Translation iPads, the COWs (Computers on Wheels), the owls, blankets and books that we have donated put to such great use! Made me want to get home and get cracking on PAA work!

Here’s to continued improvement in 2016.

Nan

January Newsletter

Happy New Year!

PAA will be kicking off 2016 with our Annual Membership Lunch and Meeting on Wednesday January 20.  Coffee and catching up will begin at 9:30, with the meeting and lunch to follow.

This event is a great way to get informed about our current and up-coming projects, our donation for 2015 and our plans for the coming year. We will also hear from a representative from Family Assistance at LPCH. Proceeds from our Fancy Nancy event were dedicated to this fund, so it will be rewarding to hear of their services.

The new PAA Board will also be installed. This is a great opportunity for you to chat with those members who are returning and to welcome new board members Haydee Navarro Marshall (Vice President) and Carol Roland (Treasurer). We will all want to thank June Schiller for her years of graciously unwavering service as our Treasurer. No matter what we threw at her, she got it to balance!

If you haven’t sent in your rsvp, please contact Dallas Manning at l-manning@sbcglobal.net with your menu choice (Chicken Picatta, Beef Medallions or Vegetarian Napoleon) soon please!

If you have any toiletries &/or make-up bags for the Teen Van, Erika Crowley will be happy to take them at the Annual Meeting.  If you have a few hours to sort the toiletries into kits, I can put you in touch with that group.  They meet about once a quarter for a couple of hours only.

The new Teen Van will be making a stop at one of our meetings this year for us to tour. You will be amazed at what they can fit into that rolling clinic!

Restaurants With Heart will be at Sultana, 1149 El Camino, Menlo Park

for dinners on the 25^th and 26^th of this month. Please see the attached flyer for details.

Up-Coming Events:

January 20, 2016    Annual Membership Meeting & Lunch,    

9:30 am – 2pm, University Club, 3277 Miranda Ave, Palo Alto

January 25 & 26,    Restaurants with Heart,                        

Sultana, 1149 El Camino Real, Menlo Park (dinner only)

November 2015 Newsletter

Happy Thanksgiving!

The Palo Alto Auxiliary year is coming to a close, and we have a lot to be thankful for!

The Membership Tea was a wonderful afternoon of friendship, memories, celebration and wonderful treats! Thanks to Mary Hicks, Stephanie Beach and their amazing committee!

Restaurants With Heart’s year is now successfully complete… with $13,000 profit and many satisfied diners! Thanks to the hard work and perseverance of chairperson Marlene Bollhoffer and her committee, this was another great year! RwH restaurateurs are lining up to take a tour of the hospital this Spring. Always wonderful to see where one’s donations go.

The American Girl Fashion Show was a success! We have to admit that we had our doubts along the way…our ticket sales were at our lowest, our souvenir sales dented by having the American Girl Store in our backyard, BUT we made the most dollars per patron of any of our previous eleven years…adding the Doll Hair Salon (Thank You Paul Mitchell Salon!), Walk the Runway and pumping up the “glam” of our raffle prizes helped dramatically. Including unsold merchandise, our profit will be about $35,000.

Due to the generosity of our members, all 45 of the girls from Operation Care and Comfort (children of current active military or Gold Star Families) were able to attend! Thank you!

We are planning to hold a Doll Fair in early spring to help sell the remaining souvenirs. It will be open to vendors of all varieties of dolls and doll accessories, not just American Girl. Perhaps it will also be a venue for private individuals to sell those dolls that are gathering dust in closets, attics and basements! This idea is a work in progress. If you are interested in helping to plan or volunteer, please let me know! If you would like to buy souvenirs, please visit our website www.paloaltoauxiliary.com or contact Cathy Murphy, paloaltocathy@yahoo.com

We are also thankful for the 10 new members who have joined PAA in the past months! Alicia Baker, Cindy Dumesney, Sabrina Garcia, Nora Guera, Kristin Iribarren, Melissa Kertz, Katie Liniger, Kristin Meier, Nirmala Patri and Katie Shea. All wonderful additions to our group!

The Christmas Boutique at Allied Arts Guild, Menlo Park will be held on Saturday December 5 from 10 am to 3 pm. Talented PAA seamstresses, crafters and artists will be selling handmade items. A wonderful way to buy lovely gifts, get in the holiday spirit and support LPCH! If you would be able to help with sales at the event, please contact Sharon Brugos. msbrugos@sbcglobal.net

Bears & Books.  This year 275 bears and 100 books have been donated to LPCH An additional 50 bears went to the Ronald McDonald House of Stanford. Centerpieces of our books and bears will be featured at the upcoming Association of Auxiliaries luncheon. A wonderful way to get the word out!

The Thora’s Thimbles group has been busy (when are they not!) producing   comfort items for the little patients at the hospital…cough pillows, ER owls, blankets, tote bags, respirator covers…a long and wonderful list! Angels all.

Earlier this month PAA members Ellen Smith and Nancy Scaff became aware of a girl who visited the Teen Van for the first time…she was homeless, she had nothing, not even underwear! Ellen and Nancy stepped in immediately to help.  The Teen Van team treats the medical, social and mental health needs of kids who are in foster care, the children of the working poor ($15/hr doesn’t even pay for a studio apartment in our valley), homeless or runaways from abusive family relationships.

While younger children may get presents from programs such as Toys for Tots, teens may be left out. If you are interested in donating during this season, the Teen Van will use the funds to give out Target gift cards and movie ticket vouchers to their patients…we could call it, the Secret Nana Project ….

If you are interested, please send your checks to PAA c/o June Schiller, 863 Garland Dr, Palo Alto 94303

Wishing you all a wonderful Thanksgiving

Upcoming events

December 5, 2015 10 am to 3 pm, Holiday Boutique, 

Allied Arts Guild , 70 Arbor Rd., Menlo Park

January 20, 2016 Annual Membership Meeting & Lunch, 9:30 am – 2pm, 

University Club, 3277 Miranda Ave, Palo Alto

January 25 & 26, Restaurants with Heart, Sultana, Menlo Park